The Christian Scriptures

Interpreting Revelation

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What does Revelation mean?

Conservative Protestants typically believe in the inerrancy of the Bible and follow the futuristic approach.
Many follow the theories of John Nelson Darby (1801-1882) who is
regarded as the father of modern Dispensationalism. He introduced the
concept of the secret Rapture -- that God
would remove saved individuals from earth without prior warning.
Dispensationalists
generally believe that the end time is very near; many believe
that it will happen during their lifetime. They regard the Book of
Revelation as
one of the most important in the entire Bible, because it describes what will happen in
our very near future. They believe that the elements of the end times (tribulation,
rapture, Armageddon, and millennium) will occur exactly as specified. However, there are
many conflicting theories about the order of the events: Historical
Premillennialism, Dispensational Premillennialism, and Amillennialism are three
mutually exclusive theories of the sequence of the time happenings.

Liberal Christians frequently follow an historical interpretation of
the book. One source concludes that the writing of Revelation was
motivated by persecution of the Christians by the Roman government. 2 The Romans had revived
the requirement that everyone worship the emperor as a living god. This practice was
reinstituted by Emperor Domitian near the end of his reign, during the early 90's CE.
Thus, the book of Revelation is assumed to have been written at about that time. Its main
theme is to call for Christian solidarity to resist the demands of the empire and to
refuse to worship the emperor.

The author of Revelation clearly anticipated the end of the world within a few years of the writing
of the book. He writes in the first chapter about "things which must shortly come
to pass" and "the time is at hand." Of course, the
author was wrong. The end of the world never
happened in the late first or early second century CE.

Most liberals pay little attention to the book. They agree with Martin Luther
and largely reject it
because it portrays a God who is extremely hateful and bent on revenge against
virtually the entire human race. The God of Revelation bears little resemblance to the
loving, kind Abba who was worshiped by Jesus. The book describes armies fighting
on horseback with primitive, first century weapons. It obviously has little
relevance to us today. It was probably apocalyptic literature which was written
to bolster the morale of 1st century Christians in 7 churches, located in
present-day Turkey.

Roman Catholics: The Catholic Encyclopedia suggests
that the Seer -- the author of Revelation -- wanted to comfort
Christians at a time of great peril:

"The danger of apostasy was great. False prophets went about,
trying to seduce the people to conform to the heathen practices and
to take part in the Caesar-worship. The Seer urges his Christians to
remain true to their faith and to bear their troubles with
fortitude. He encourages them with the promise of an ample and
speedy reward. He assures them that Christ's
triumphant coming is at hand....With the coming of
Christ the woes of the Christians will be
avenged. Their oppressors will be given up to the judgment and the
everlasting torments. The martyrs that have fallen will be raised to
life, that they may share the pleasures of Christ's kingdom, the
millennium....It would appear, and is so
held by many that the Christians of the Apostolic age expected that
Christ would return during their own lifetime or generation. This
seems to be the more obvious meaning of several passages both in the
Epistles and Gospels....The Christians of Asia Minor and the Seer
with them, appear to have shared this fallacious expectation. Their
mistaken hope, however, did not affect the soundness of their belief
in the essential part of the dogma. Their views of a millennial
period of corporal happiness were equally erroneous. The Church has
wholly cast aside the doctrine of a millennium previous to the
resurrection." 13

Christian domestic terrorists: In 1999-OCT, the FBI announced the
completion of the Megiddo Project - an intensive
study of the potential for domestic terrorism in the new Millennium. A
portion of the report's introduction deals with religiously motivated
terrorists: 3 It is quoted below:

The Book of Revelation was written by a man named "John" who was
exiled by the Roman government to a penal colony - the island of Patmos -
because of his beliefs in Christ. 4
While on the island, he experienced a series of visions, described in the
Book of Revelation. The writing in the Book of Revelation is addressed to
churches who were at the time experiencing or were threatened by persecution
from Rome because they were not following the government. For this reason,
some believe the Book of Revelation was written in code language, much of
which was taken from other parts of the Bible.

"One interpretation describing the essence of the message contained in
Revelation is that God will overcome Christianity's enemies (Roman
Government/Satan) and that the persecuted communities should persevere.
5
For right-wing groups who believe they are being persecuted by the satanic
government of the United States, the Book of Revelation's message fits
perfectly into their world view. This world view, in combination with a
literal interpretation of the Book of Revelation, is reflected in extremist
ideology, violent acts, and literature. For this reason, it is imperative to
know the meaning of some of the 'code words' frequently used:

Four (4) signifies the world.

Six (6) signifies imperfection.

Seven (7) is the totality of perfection or fullness and completeness.

Twelve (12) represents the twelve tribes of Israel or the 12 apostles.

One-thousand (1000) signifies immensity.

The color white symbolizes power and can also represent victory, joy
and resurrection.

The color red symbolizes a bloody war.

The color black symbolizes famine.

A rider on a pale green horse is a symbol of Death itself.

'Babylon' is the satanic Roman Government, now used to describe
the U.S. government." 6

"Black Hebrew Israelites, a black supremacist group, typify the use of
numerology from the Book of Revelation. They believe group members will
comprise the 144,000 people who are saved by God in the second coming that
is outlined in Revelation (7:1-17). In the Book of Revelation, John is shown
a vision of 144,000 martyrs who have survived and did not submit to Satan.
This number is derived from the assertion that the twelve tribes of Israel
consisted of 12,000 people each."

"Groups not only use the Bible to interpret the endtimes, but use it to
justify their ideology. Phineas Priests, an amorphous group of Christian
Identity adherents, base their entire ideology on Chapter 25 of the Book of
Numbers. The passage depicts a scene where Phineas kills an Israelite who
was having relations with a Midianite woman and God then granted Phineas and
all of his descendants a pledge of everlasting priesthood. Modern day
followers of the Phineas Priest ideology believe themselves to be the linear
descendants of Phineas and this passage gives them biblical justification to
punish those who transgress God's laws. Therefore, the group is ardently
opposed to race mixing and strongly believes in racial separation. The
number 25 is often used as a symbol of the group."

Apocalyptic Religious Beliefs:
"To understand the mind set of why religious extremists would actively
seek to engage in violent confrontations with law enforcement, the most
common extremist ideologies must be understood. Under these ideologies, many
extremists view themselves as religious martyrs who have a duty to initiate
or take part in the coming battles against Satan. Domestic terrorist groups
who place religious significance on the millennium believe the federal
government will act as an arm of Satan in the final battle. By extension,
the FBI is viewed as acting on Satan's behalf."

"The philosophy behind targeting the federal government or entities
perceived to be associated with it is succinctly described by Kerry Noble, a
former right-wing extremist. He says the right-wing "envision[s] a dark
and gloomy endtime scenario, where some Antichrist makes war against
Christians." 7
The House of Yahweh, a Texas based religious group whose leaders are former
members of the tax protesting Posse Comitatus, is typical: [Yisrayl] Hawkins (the
leader) has interpreted biblical scripture that the Israeli Peace Accord
signed on October 13, 1993, has started a 7-year period of tribulation which
will end on October 14, 2000, with the return of the Yeshua (the Messiah). 8
He also has interpreted that the FBI will be the downfall of the House of
Yahweh and that the Waco Branch Davidian raids in 1993 were a warning to The
House of Yahweh from the federal government, which he terms 'the beast.'
9Similarly, Richard Butler, leader of the white
supremacist group Aryan Nations, said the following when asked what
might have motivated the day care shooting by Buford O. Furrow, Jr., one
of his group's followers: "There's a war against the white race. There's
a war of extermination against the white male." 10

Conclusions:

The Book of Revelation appears to be ambiguous, and open to many
interpretations. This severely weakens the concept of
biblical inerrancy and the belief that God inspired
the authors of the Bible to write books free of error and ambiguity.

Unfortunately, as in so many other
important Christian beliefs there is no way to harmonize the diversity of
Christian belief. Even within the evangelical wing of Christianity there are
many conflicting opinions about fundamental beliefs.
Some suggest that believers can pray to God to seek the correct interpretation
from among the beliefs that have been suggested. Unfortunately,
a pilot study that we performed appears to show that
a person cannot assess the will of God through prayer.

Some interpretations of Revelation have led writers to prophesy
catastrophic events in their own future. Fortunately
none of their predictions have ever come true. We will have to wait to see in
the prophecies about our future will materialize
-- particularly those involving the winter solstice in
2012. But with a 100% failure rate to date, it is difficult to place much
confidence about prophecies of events in our future.

References used and comments:

The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above
essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.

The FBI is here following the contents of Revelation. Theologians differ
about the authorship of the book as noted above.

The FBI's interpretation of the Book of Revelation is according to the
Catholic
Bible and a Catholic scholar-consultant.

Symbolism was taken from The Catholic Bible; New American Bible. [American law enforcement seems to have a fascination with symbols.
During the Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) hoax of the
1980's and early 1990's, few police seminars on SRA was complete without a few
pages of strange looking symbols.]